Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2007 | 7:05 a.m.
Regarding the Las Vegas Sun's Feb. 18 story, "The advantage of public service":
Needless to say, it was quite a pleasant surprise to see this article in the Sun. Your people did a great job and I applaud their effort.
We seem to have no concept of how dangerous it is to create a privileged government. The funding costs alone are staggering. Ten billion dollars in unfunded liabilities. An operating gap of over $500 million a year to make government the highest paid "industry" in Nevada. How can any rate of growth ever pay for that?
When the "general welfare" turns out to really mean the very specific welfare of those inside the institution of government, then the eternal struggle for political, social and economic justice is lost.
Remember, none of us was born into a society carrying the dead weight of a privileged government. Nor were our parents or grandparents. Nor were their parents or grandparents. All the advancements we have made came when there was a real economic connection between the ordinary citizen and his government.
The rise to dominance of a privileged government has happened on our watch. We are responsible for this cruel restructuring of our political system and we should be ashamed of ourselves for letting it happen and even more ashamed of ourselves for supporting it and letting it continue.
Knight Allen, Las Vegas
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